POTTSTOWN — The release of Gov. Josh Shapiro’s budget proposal earlier this week was welcomed warmly by those who have struggled with Pennsylvania’s chronic imbalance of funding for public schools.
For years, Pottstown Schools have been listed among the most underfunded according to Pennsylvania’s fair funding formula, which calculates need based on a number of factors but has never been fully utilized to determine state funding for public schools.
And for most of those years, Pottstown Schools Superintendent Stephen Rodriguez has been fighting to correct that inequity. Shapiro’s budget, he said Wednesday night, is a “break through.”
“Instead of talking to one senator at a time in their office pleading our case, we’re now part of the seven-year plan the Basic Education Funding Commission laid out and the governor made part of his budget,” said :Rodriguez. “This budget proposal supports urban and minority districts. This is not a budget designed for the Radnors of the world and I’m OK with that.”
Shapiro’s $48.3 billion spending plan earmarks $1.1 billion for public schools, a 14 percent funding increase, and $872 million is that is aimed at poorer school districts like Pottstown and Norristown.
According to the office of state Rep. Joe Ciresi, D-146th Dist., Pottstown would see a $4.8 million increase in state aid under Shapiro’s budget; Pottsgrove would see an increase of $2.9 million and even Spring-Ford, where Ciresi spent years on the school board, would see a $1.3 million increase.
“These investments in education are a first step on a path to making sure every school has the resources it needs,” Ciresi said in a press release issued after Shapiro’s budget was presented. “They also recognize that our property taxpayers deserve a break, and for the first time, this would include funding specifically dedicated to providing that relief in places like Pottstown and Pottsgrove.”
State Rep. Paul Friel, D-26th Dist., agreed. “This is a fundamentally sound budget proposal from Governor Shapiro. It represents a significant investment in public education for Pennsylvania’s students by addressing the current funding inequities, and would reduce the pressure on school districts to raise local property taxes,” he said in a press release issued by his office.
“This budget invests in education at every level. We are talking about the largest increase in K-12 basic education funding in Pennsylvania history,” said state Rep. Johanny Cepeda-Freytiz, D-129th Dist., who represents the Reading School District, among the top three most under-funded districts in Pennsylvania. “I hail the $1.1 billion increase in basic education subsidies and significant funding for special education, school safety improvements, and universal free breakfast for 1.7 million students it calls for.”
Not all local legislators, however, are fans of Shapiro’s budget plans.
Although she did not mention the increase in education funding specifically, state Rep. Donna Scheuren, R-147th Dist., issued a statement criticizing spending increases in Shapiro’s budget. “With an extensive senior citizen population ready to retire in Pennsylvania, and a workforce not keeping pace to replace them, now is not the time to grow government programs,” she said in a statement posted on her website.
“Government must live within its means, no different than every household across America,” said Scheuren. “We must reign in this excessive spending proposal and stop Gov. Shapiro from depleting a surplus that took over a decade to accumulate.”
Shaprio’s budget does increase spending without increasing taxes, instead balancing the budget by reducing the surplus Scheuren mentioned from $14 billion to $11 billion.
But education advocates, including those who brought the case to Commonwealth Court that ruled Pennsylvania’s public education funding system violates the state Constitution, said the increase in school support for poorer schools is overdue.
“Education advocates statewide are cheering Governor Shapiro’s budget proposal as a smart approach that puts Pennsylvania on the right path toward an adequate, equitable, and constitutional public funding system — this is a public education budget worth fighting for,” read a statement issued by PA Schools Work, a coalition of 17 organizations from across Pennsylvania which participated in a rally at the Capitol Wednesday to commemorate the first anniversary of the school funding lawsuit.
“All school districts would benefit from the $200 million in Basic Education Funding and $50 million in special education funding that will be distributed via state formulas that are based on districts’ actual student populations and needs,” Susan Spicka, executive director Executive Director of Education Voters of PA, said in a statement issued Tuesday. “An additional investment of $300 million in school facilities and continued investments in mental health supports will have a meaningful and direct benefit for students.”
“Shapiro’s proposal includes a much needed investment in public schools. For the key line item, the Basic Education Funding alone, the Governor almost doubles the funds compared to last year,” Donna Cooper, executive director of the Montgomery County-based Children First advocacy group said in an analysis of Shapiro’s budget. “This investment represents a serious effort to abide by the Commonwealth Court order to meet its Constitutional obligation to provide a quality education to every child.”
Cooper said the legislature most pass legislation guaranteeing the funding increases through the seven years set out by the commission. “A final budget plan must include legislation that guarantees that the constitutional violation of our current school funding system is fully cured with more than $5 billion invested in public schools over seven years.”
“The governor’s budget proposal is a historic first step toward delivering what our public schools need to provide the public education that our constitution requires,” Aaron Chapin, president of the Pennsylvania State Education Association teachers union. “This is a solid beginning to a multiyear process, and we’re very pleased that this is one of Gov. Shapiro’s top priorities. We absolutely must make these critical investments in our public schools, students, educators, and support staff, and we can’t allow anything to distract us from doing it.”
Rodriguez, however, has been to this dance before and he knows that what the governor proposes rarely survives unchanged the review and changes made by a divided state legislature. In last year’s budget, the budget impasse over school vouchers ended up in Pottstown losing out on an additional $1 million in “level up funding” that never materialized.
The level-up funding was created three years ago as a Harrisburg special, a cobbled-together effort to rush funding to districts whose state education subsidy has been less than the fair funding formula, adopted in 2016, indicated they should receive. In Pottstown’s case, that adds up to more than $80 million over the course of the last seven years, Rodriguez told the panel.
But this bucket of funding existed outside the confines of the traditional state budget. “Honestly, at a certain point I just wrote it off,” said Rodriguez. Shapiro’s budget eliminates the need for level-up funding.
Even so, Rodriguez knows better than to count unhatched chickens.
“It we get $5 million, or $2 million, we have a plan and it’s the same four buckets I always talk about, taxes, facilities, personnel and programs.” he said.
Last year, despite its underfunding from the state, Pottstown was one of the only school districts in Pennsylvania to provide a property tax rebate. “There is a connection between the businesses and the school district and neither can do what they want do do unless the community is economically healthy,” said Rodriguez, who sits on the board of Pottstown Area Economic Development, the borough’s economic development agency. “I would love for Pottstown to be out of the top 10 in Pennsylvania for tax effort,” he said.
As for facilities, Pottstown Schools have “millions of identified maintenance and improvement projects and no way to pay for them,” he said.
Pottstown has finally begun to lift its base salary and is no longer the lowest in Montgomery County, and teachers are starting to stick around longer. “Being able to have caring, competent personnel is the number one factor in student achievement and improvement,” Rodriguez said. “It’s not programs, it’s not books, it’s teachers who feel they can make a difference which is what counts most.”
Which is not to say that programs will be ignored if Pottstown gets a major increase in state funding. Rodriguez said little funding meant fewer programs, fewer tools to match with the myriad needs of Pottstown students, “but now we’re getting our hands on enough programs that we can address the needs of a wider variety of students and those students are making measurable progress.”
“It’s awesome,” said Rodriguez. “We have a long way to go still, but I feel like a real educator again. If we’re fully funded, we know exactly what we’re going to do.”
Source: Berkshire mont
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